Speranza
Wolfgang Golther
is best known to those with an interest in the life and works of Richard Wagner
as the editor of the correspondence between Wagner and Mathilde Wesendonk,
including the so-called Venice Diary.
Subsequently Dr. Golther published two
books in which he surveyed Wagner's sources and related literature. One of these
concerns the legend of Tristan and Isolde, the other concerns the legend of
Parsifal and the Grail: Parzival und der Gral in der Dichtung des Mittelalters
und der Neuzeit. The following short extract has been translated from the
chapter headed "Richard Wagner's Parsifal". When reading Dr. Golther's attempts
to reconstruct the lost 1857 sketch of Parsifal the reader should keep in mind
that, although plausible and informed, it is no more than
guesswork.
Left: Marienbad seen from the Cross Well, drawn in
1843. Wagner visited this spa in 1845.
First Acquaintance with the
Parzival Material
n July 1845 Wagner took a cure at the Marienbad Spa, where
he read poems by Wolfram in the editions of Simrock (1842) and San Marte (1836),
also the poem Lohengrin in that of Görres (1813) with its confused but rich
introduction. In the deep woodlands, lying beside the brook, I conversed with
Titurel and Parzival in the strange and nevertheless so intimately homely poems
of Wolfram. From this encounter first came the son of Parzival, Lohengrin, who
was sent by the Grail:
In fernem Land, unnahbar euren Schritten,
liegt
eine Burg, die Montsalvat genannt;
ein lichter Tempel stehet dort
inmitten,
so kostbar, als auf Erden nichts bekannt;
drin ein Gefäss von
wundertät'gem Segen
wird dort als höchstes Heiligtum bewacht:
Es ward,
dass sein der Menschen reinste pflegen,
herab von einer Engelschar
gebracht;
alljährlich naht vom Himmel eine Taube,
um neu zu stärken seine
Wunderkraft:
Es heisst der Gral, und selig reinster Glaube
erteilt durch
ihn sich seiner Ritterschaft.
In distant land, untrod by mortal
footsteps,
there stands a castle, Montsalvat by name;
in its midst, there
stands a shining temple
so glorious that none on earth can
compare.
Within, a vessel of wondrous power
is guarded as the holiest of
treasures:
so it might be tended by the purest of men,
a host of angels
brought it to this earth.
Once every year a dove descends from Heaven
to
strengthen anew its wondrous power:
'tis called the Grail, and blessing of
purest faith
it does confer on its devoted
knights.
Left: Titurel Receives the Grail and Spear,
oil painting by Franz Stassen.
he prelude to his Lohengrin,
entitled the holy Grail, describes -- according to Wagner's own program note
written for the Zurich music festival of 18 May 1853 and later published in
volume 5 of the Gesammelte Schriften1-- the Grail borne aloft by a host of
angels. The divine vessel is revealed with increasing clarity to the senses of
the onlookers as it approaches the earth. The angelic host ascends again and
disappears in the bright light of the blue ether from whence it came. But the
Grail remains behind in the care of the purest humans, into whose hearts its
contents have been poured.
In his autobiography Wagner relates, how in the autumn of 1854 he was
uncertain about how to make further use of the material. I wove into the last
act an episode I later did not use: this was a visit by Parzival, wandering in
search of the Grail, to Tristan's sickbed. Hans von Wolzogen supplements these
remarks by the following report, published in the Bayreuther Blätter of 1886,
page 73:
Parzival searching for the Grail was to appear at Kareol as a
pilgrim, while Tristan lies there on his deathbed, in the depths of despair and
love's suffering. So the one desiring, who will find salvation through
compassion, and the other renouncing, who curses himself in atonement for his
guilt and endures love's suffering unto death, would be seen together. Here
death! There new life! It was intended that a melody associated with the
wandering Parzival should sound in the ears of the mortally wounded Tristan, as
it were the mysteriously faint receding answer to his life-destroying question
about the "Why?" of existence. Out of this melody, it may be said, grew the
stage-dedicatory festival-drama.
The pilgrim journey of Parzival is
preserved on a sheet of manuscript, which Richard Wagner sent to Frau Mathilde
Wesendonk:
Parzival: "Wo find' ich dich, du heil'ger Gral, dich
sucht voll Sehnsucht mein Herze".
rom the original draft of the Tristan
drama, preserved in a small note book during the years 1854-55, Hans von
Wolzogen quoted this Parzival scene in the Bayreuther Blätter of 1915, page
145:
Third act - Tristan on his sickbed in the palace garden. Battlements to
the side. Awaking from sleep he calls out to the squire, who is keeping watch on
the battlements, asking whether he sees anything. There is nothing to be seen.
At his call he comes finally. Reproaches - apology. A pilgrim had to be
received. There and then. Tristan's impatience. The squire still sees nothing.
Tristan considers. Doubts. Singing receding from below. Who is it? Squire tells
of the pilgrim - Parzival. Deep impression. Love and agony. My mother died, when
she bore me; now I live, born to die. Why so? - Parzival's refrain - repeated by
the shepherd - the whole world nothing but unsatisfied longing! How is it to be
stilled? - Parzival's Refrain.
Right: In the deep woodlands,
lying beside the brook... This brook runs through Marienbad.
First
Draft of an Independent Parzival-Drama (1857)
he autobiography tells how the
first draft of an independent Parzival-drama came into the
world:
Beautiful spring weather now set in; on Good Friday I awoke to
find the sun shining brightly into this house for the first time; the little
garden was blooming and the birds singing, and at last I could sit out on the
parapeted terrace of the little dwelling and enjoy the longed-for tranquillity
that seemed so fraught with promise. Filled with this sentiment, I suddenly said
to myself that this was Good Friday and recalled how meaningful this had seemed
to me in Wolfram's Parzival. Ever since that stay in Marienbad, where I had
conceived Die Meistersinger and Lohengrin, I had not taken another look at that
poem; now its ideality came to me in overwhelming form, and from the idea of
Good Friday I quickly sketched out an entire drama in three acts.
Left: The little dwelling; the "Asyl".
ans von
Wolzogen again supplements this report from Wagner's verbal account in the
Bayreuther Blätter of 1885, page 48:
A wonderful morning was ascended
over lake and mountains of Zürich and its surroundings. The Master looked down
from the heights of his newly-won, tranquil "Asyl" into the sunny charms of the
spring morning: You are not to carry weapons on the day, when our Lord died on
the cross!, he seemed to hear as if from angel tongues in the great peace of
this solemn world. It was a far distant voice, a Grail sound resounding from the
days of his Lohengrin, a slowly fading memory from the time, when he once had
communed, in the Bohemian forest, with Wolfram's poem of Parzival. Before him
the picture of the Crucified floated; and, quietly putting aside the armour of
philosophically-clarified world-criticism and the weapon of historically-
sharpened world-denial, he sketched the poem of his Parzival.
The report
does not, in fact, agree with the historical data: the Wagners only moved into
the "Asyl" on 29 April 1857, while Good Friday fell in 1857 on 10 April, before
Wagner had stayed in the "Asyl". The whole account points however to a deeply
internal experience, which stuck indelibly in his memory, even if the incidental
circumstances became confused.
Right: Parzival, riding proud, armed and
finely-dressed, meets the grey pilgrim-knight on Good Friday, in this painting
from Ludwig's castle of Neuschwanstein.
So what did this
Zürich draft of Parzival look like, this sketch which was written down
immediately? We may assume2 with some certainty that, in the main, it closely
followed Wolfram.
Also that many motives, which were added from other sources
and from renewed study of the source material, were first introduced in later
versions.
First, following Book 9 of Wolfram's Parzival, Wagner would have
sketched the third act.
The stay in the forest cell of Trevrizent is the core
and crux of Wolfram's whole poem.
In accordance with his own experience however
this was located in a charming spring landscape, the shining, flowery meadows of
Wagner's drama, instead of the harsh, wintry landscape described in the romance.
The grey pilgrim-knight who reprimands Parzival for riding proud, armed and
finely-dressed on Good Friday, became merged with the hermit Trevrizent. Since
the Good Friday magic is the starting point of the whole drama and therefore
from the outset would have been recorded in detail, it probably appeared already
in the Zürich draft in words which essentially agree with the final poem,
perhaps similar to these appearing in the Munich [1865] Prose Draft:
You see
it is not so: today all animal creation is glad to gaze up at the Redeemer. Not
being able to see Him on the Cross, it gazes up at man redeemed: who, through
God's loving sacrifice, has a feeling of holiness and purity; the meadow flowers
notice that man does not trample them today, but, as God took pity on mankind,
spares them: now all that is blooming and soon to die, gives thanks; it is
Nature's day of innocence.
Kundry, as the penitent Magdalen, has her model in
Wolfram at the beginning of Book 9 in the anchoress Sigune, whom Parzival visits
first. The Zürich draft probably brough together Sigune (i.e. Kundry), the grey
pilgrim-knight, Trevrizent (i.e. Gurnemanz) and Parzival in one scene, at the
hermit cell, and led from there with omission of the events which intervene in
Wolfram's poem directly to the Grail castle and the healing of Amfortas. The
Holy Spear, the Christ-lance, which first appears only in a note following the
Munich Prose Draft of 1865, was missing from the Zürich draft. Perhaps the
healing was effected as in Wolfram, by Parzival asking the compassionate
question about the suffering of the king. So the third act consolidated the
action of Wolfram's Book 9 with details from Books 15-16 (appointment of
Parzival to the office of king and introduction into the Grail castle) to
produce an impressive dramatic account in two scenes.
The Grail, which already
appears in Lohengrin as a vessel of wondrous power, was interpreted by Wagner in
accordance with the French romances, whose contents had been communicated by
Simrock and San Marte, as the chalice of the Last Supper, in which Joseph of
Arimathea caught the blood of the Saviour at the cross, not as Wolfram's magic
stone. From the outset the Master went beyond and around Wolfram for the sake of
clarity and descriptiveness. By concentrating on that which he found to be
significant and important, and by leaving out the wonderful extravagances of
Wolfram's imagination, Wagner achieved a poetic form that was concise and
strong.
Left: Parzival at the cell of the hermit Trevrizent, in this
painting from Ludwig's castle of Neuschwanstein.
The simplifications
of the third act affected the first act (corresponding to Wolfram's Book 5), the
first visit by Parzival to the Grail castle. Here too the act was divided into
two main scenes: the first based around Amfortas taking a soothing bath in the
holy lake (not fishing as in Wolfram! see Parzival 491, 6)3 and with the Grail
ceremony in the temple. With the view of the Grail as a vessel containing the
holy blood, the solemn ceremony was given a chalice as in a church service. The
old squire (Gurnemanz, who had merged with the hermit Trevrizent of the third
act into one character), Amfortas and the marvellously wild Grail messenger
carried the action. The Grail messenger was present, cowering in a corner, in
the painful scene with Amfortas and stared with a strangely inquisitive look,
sphinx-like at Parzival. The compression to the drama prevented a direct
representation of the forest life of the young Parzival (Wolfram's Book 3),
particularly since the young Siegfried already contained such a picture on the
beauty of which Wagner could scarcely improve. In the drama Parzival enters the
domain of the Grail as a fool, in the epic as a knight. He plays the fool with
Wolfram earlier, at the court of King Arthur. In the drama effective contrasts
resulted from this compression: the fool in the first act, the knight in the
third act. Particular scenes from Parzival's youth , e.g. the meeting in the
forest of the boy with the "shining men", the knights, are introduced into his
first act dialogue with the old squire.
or the second act Wagner diverged
more freely from Wolfram, choosing as the scene of the action the magic castle
of Klingsor with the seductive woman, contents of Wolfram's books 10-13. The
adventures of Gawain were transferred to Parzival and thus a contrast, unknown
to Wolfram, was established between the Grail castle and Klingsor's castle of
wonders. In Wolfram the centre of the action here is the beautiful Orgeluse,
whose charms no knight (with the single exception of Parzival) can resist, in
whose service Anfortas is wounded by the poisoned spear. Originally Wagner's
Zürich draft kept distinct the three women described by Wolfram: the wild Grail
messenger (Kundry) in the first act, Orgeluse in the second act, Sigune in third
act. Only in the letters to Mathilde Wesendonk of 2 March 1859 and 1 August 1860
does Kundry become the world-demonic woman. The rebirth teachings that Wagner
addressed in the Buddha-drama that he sketched in 1856 had an influence on the
later development, although certainly not during the early development, of the
Kundry figure. Another idea came from Wolfram, in which (318, 24)4 the Grail
messenger Kundry appears again in the magic castle, where another Kundry, the
beautiful sister of Gawain (334, 20)5 is held captive. In Wolfram's poem however
these characters have nothing in common except the name. Thus one discovers some
threads which lead from scattered places in Wolfram's poem to the drama, which
were hardly present in the Zürich draft but which occurred to Wagner when he
returned to the poem. Thus e.g. Kundry's call to Parsifal in the second act
originates from a meeting of the fool with his cousin Sigune (140, 16)6 in which
she reveals the name that he had forgotten, and her curse on him from the Grail
messenger's curse in Book 6 (315, 20)7.
Right: A dark-skinned
Condrie, as Grail messenger, curses Parzival at the court of King Arthur, in
another painting from Neuschwanstein.
A few images from
Wolfram's poem stuck in Wagner's memory, from which be was able to outline
immediately the entire drama in three acts on the "Good Friday" in 1857. How
reliably Wagner's memory held after several years is shown by the letter to
Uhlig of November 1851, where Wagner had asked for the Völsungasaga from the
Dresden library in order to complete the poem of the Valkyrie but almost
immediately recognized that he did not need this source after all. Just as
little as he needed the Marienbad draft of 1845, which Frau Wesendonk sent him
on 25 December 1861 to Paris, to complete the poem of the Meistersinger. With
amazing fidelity he recalled the contents of Wolfram's Parzival, in order to
compress that content, in the mysterious instant of poetic conception, into
three climactic situations of violent intensity.
Wagner
Writes from Venice and Paris (1858-60)
the Parzival-drama in the course of
time developed further and changed under completely different circumstances of
work and life, we read in the letters of the years 1858-60 about which basic
ideas moved into or out of focus. The Parzival-drama, like Goethe's Faust, was
an ever-present, quietly maturing work, often perhaps only present in thoughts
or in marginal notes added to the old draft, until the time arrived for a new
draft. In the letter in the Venice Diary of Richard Wagner of 1 October 1858 we
can see that the subject of compassion or fellow-suffering was inseparably
connected with the Parzival-drama from the outset. I recognize in this
compassion [Mitleid] the most salient feature of my moral nature, and presumably
it is this which finds expression in my art. Wagner speaks of his compassion for
animals, those who, in contrast to humans, cannot be raised by their own
suffering to the height of resignation:
... their absolute, redemption-less
suffering without any higher purpose, their only release being death, which
confirms my belief that it would have been better for them never to have entered
upon life. And so, if this suffering can have a purpose, it is simply to awaken
a sense of compassion [des Mitleidens] in man, who thereby absorbs the animal's
defective existence, and becomes the redeemer of the world by recognising the
error of all existence. (This meaning will one day become clearer to you from
the Good Friday morning scene in the third act of Parzival.)
chopenhauer
had expressed similar thoughts: boundless compassion with all living natures is
the firmest and surest guarantee of morality... The moral incentive advanced by
me as the genuine, is further confirmed by the fact that the animals are also
taken under its protection. In other European systems of morality they are badly
provided for, which is most inexcusable... Since compassion for animals is so
intimately associated with goodness of character, it may be confidently asserted
that whoever is cruel to animals cannot be a good man... However the quality of
the heart exists in a basic, universal compassion with everything that lives,
although firstly with humans.
"Parsifal" in its definitive shape is the
tragedy of compassion, the ethical basis of world redemption.
In his last
writings, as is well-known, Wagner advocated a religion of compassion.
We will
have to discuss this idea in the action of the drama in more detail. For the
present it is enough to say that already in the original version, in the Zürich
draft of the Parzival-drama, this ethical basic idea would have been clearly and
certainly expressed.
In the letter to Mathilde Wesendonk of 19 January 1859 we
read that Savitri [Prakriti] (in the Indian drama Die Sieger, which was sketched
in 1856) and Parzival fill my mind with a sense of presentiment and strive
initially to form themselves into a poetic idea. On 2 March 1859 Wagner writes:
Parzival has occupied me a lot; in particular my own creation, a marvellously
world-demonic woman, becomes ever more alive and definite. If I manage to write
this poem, I will have made something very original. And on 23 May he announced
that he had a completely new concept for the Parzival-drama again. The letter of
30 May 1859 continues to develop the thought of Amfortas as the work's center of
attention and main subject, the third act Tristan with an inconceivable
intensification. The mood of the third act of Tristan - a truly alternating
fever, deepest suffering and languishing, and then directly an outbreak of
rejoicing and shouting for joy - moves the suffering Amfortas into the
foreground, behind which Parzival is nearly lost from view. The suffering of
Amfortas is described like this:
With the spear-wound and probably still
another too -- in his heart -- the wretched man knows of no other longing in his
terrible pain than the longing to die; in order to attain this supreme solace,
he demands repeatedly to be allowed a glimpse of the Grail in the hope that it
might at least close his wounds, for everything else is useless, nothing -
nothing can help him; but the Grail can give him one thing only, which is
precisely that he cannot die; its very sight increases his torments by
conferring immortality upon them. The Grail, according to my own interpretation,
is the goblet used at the Last Supper, in which Joseph of Arimathea caught the
Saviour's blood on the Cross. What terrible significance the connection between
Anfortas and this particular chalice now acquires; he, infected by the same
wound as was dealt him by a rival's spear in a passionate love-intrigue, -- his
only solace lies in the benediction of the blood that once flowed from the
Saviour's own, similar, spear-wound as He languished upon the Cross,
world-renouncing, world-redeeming and world-suffering! Blood for blood, wound
for wound -- but what a gulf between the blood of the one and that of the other,
between the one wound and the other! Wholly enraptured, he is all devotion and
all ecstacy at the miraculous proximity of the chalice which glows red in its
gentle, blissful radiance, pouring out new life -- so that death cannot come
near him! He lives, lives anew, and more terribly than ever the sinful wound
flares up in him - His wound! His very devotions become a torment! Where is the
end to it, where is redemption? The sufferings of humanity endlessly drawn out!
-- Would he, in the madness of his despair, wish to turn away forever from the
Grail and close his eyes to it? He would fain do so in order to die. But -- he
himself was appointed Guardian of the Grail; and it was no blind, superficial
power which appointed him, -- no! It was because he was so worthy, because there
was no one who knew the Grail's miraculous power as profoundly and as intimately
as he knew it, just as his whole soul now years, again and again, to behold the
vision that destroys him in the very act of worship, vouchsafing both heavenly
salvation and eternal damnation!
I
feel a very real admiration and sense of rapture at this splendid feature of
Christian mythogenesis, which invented the most profound symbol that could ever
have been invented as the content of the physical-spiritual kernel of any
religion. Who does not shudder with a sense of the most touching and sublime
emotion to hear that this same goblet, from which the Saviour drank as a last
farewell to His disciples and in which the Redeemer's indestructible blood was
caught and preserved, still exists, and that he who is pure in heart is destined
to behold it and worship it himself. Incomparable! And then the double
significance of this one vessel which also served as a chalice at the Last
Supper, without doubt the most beautiful sacrament of Christian worship! Whence,
also, the legend that the Grail (Sang Réal, whence San(ct) Gral) alone sustains
the pious knights, vouchsafing them food and drink for their repasts.
And then there is a
further difficulty with Parzival.
He is indispensably necessary as the redeemer
for whom Anfortas longs: but if Anfortas is to be placed in his true and
appropriate light, he will become of such immense tragic interest that it will
be almost impossible to introduce a second focus of attention, and yet this
focus of attention must centre upon Parzival if the latter is not simply to
enter at the end as a deus ex machina who leaves us completely cold. Thus
Parzival's development and the profound sublimity of his purification, although
entirely predestined by his thoughtful and deeply compassionate nature, must
again be brought into the foreground. But I cannot choose to work on such a
broad scale as Wolfram was able to do: I have to compress everything into three
climactic situations of violent intensity, so that the work's profound and
ramified content emerges clearly and distinctly; for my art consists in working
and representing things in this way.
Right: A memorial bust of
Richard Wagner, in Venice.
The letter of 1 August 1860
describes the origin of the Kundry-figure in its mysterious transformations,
which were animated by the Buddha-drama and the rebirth teachings connected with
it:
Parzival has again been stirring within me a good deal.
I can see more
and more in it, and with ever-increasing clarity; one day, when everything has
matured within me, it will be an unprecedented pleasure to complete this poem.
But many a long year may pass before then! And I should like to be satisfied for
once with the poem alone. I shall keep my distance from it as long as I can, and
occupy myself with it only when it forces itself upon my attention. This strange
creative process will then allow me to forget just how wretched I am.- Shall I
prattle on about this? Did I not tell you once before that the fabulously wild
messenger of the Grail is to be one and the same person as the enchantress of
the second act. Since this dawned on me, almost everything else about the
subject has become clear to me. This strangely horrifying creature who,
slave-like, serves the Knights of the Grail with untiring eagerness, who carries
out the most unheard-of tasks, and who lies in a corner waiting only until such
time as she is given some unusual and arduous task to perform - and who at times
disappears completely, no one knows how or where?- Then all at once we meet her
again, fearfully tired, wretched, pale and an object of horror; but once again
untiring in serving the Holy Grail with dog-like devotion, while all the time
revealing a secret contempt for its knights; her eye seems always to be seeking
the right one,- and she has already deceived herself once - but did not find
him. But not even she herself knows what she is searching for: it is purely
instinctive.-
Then Parzival, the foolish lad, arrives in the land,
she cannot avert her eyes from him.
Strange are the things that must go on
inside her; she does not know it, but she clings to him.
He is appalled - but
he, too, feels drawn to her; he understands nothing. (Here it is a question of
the poet having to invent everything!)
Only the matter of execution can say
anything here! - But you can gain an idea of what I mean if you listen to the
way that Brünnhilde listened to Wotan. - This woman suffers unspeakable
restlessness and excitement; the old esquire had noticed this on previous
occasions, each time that she had shortly afterwards disappeared. This time she
is in the tensest possible state. What is going on inside her? Is she appalled
at the thought of renewed flight, does she long to be freed from it? Does she
hope - for an end to it all? What hopes does she have of Parzival? Clearly she
attaches unprecedented importance to him! - But all is gloomy and vague; no
knowledge, only instinct and dusky twilight?- Cowering in a corner, she
witnesses Anfortas's agonized scene; she gazes with a strangely inquisitive look
(sphinx-like) at Parzival. He, too, is - stupid, understands nothing, stares in
amazement - says nothing. He is driven out. The messenger of the Grail sinks to
the ground with a shriek; she then disappears. (She is forced to wander again.)
Now can you guess who this wonderfully enchanting woman is, whom Parzifal [sic]
finds in the strange castle where his chivalrous spirit leads him? Guess what
happens here and how it all turns out. I shall say no more today!-
From these communications it appears that the scenerio of the Zürich
draft was already quite developed and that it had much in common with the later
poem, whilst in other elements it stayed closer to Wolfram's Parzival.
The three
main figures were [by 1860] already present:
Amfortas
Parzival
Kundry.
In the
Zürich draft Kundry as Grail messenger, in the sense that term is used by
Wolfram, attends the communion celebration already in the first act, at the same
time with Parzival, the stupid one. In the later poem [and in the 1865 Prose
Draft] she first (in attendance on Parzival) enters the temple of the Grail,
from which she was excluded as heathen 8 before, only after her baptism in the
third act. As an old squire Gurnemanz has already appeared. On the other hand
there is still no reference to Klingsor. As in Wolfram, at this stage it is the
spear of a rival in a love-adventure that causes the wound of the Amfortas. The
Holy spear, which is the lance with which Longinus wounded the Saviour in the
side and which is kept beside the Grail as a relic, does not yet appear in the
story. Between the wound of the king and that of the Saviour, however, a
mystical connection had already been established.
The author
then goes on to consider the 1865 Munich Prose Draft. The reader might prefer to
read it here.
A translation into English (or at least an
approximation to English) can be found in Wm. Ashton Ellis' edition of the Prose
Works, volume 3, pages 231-233.
Here Dr. Golther explicitly
assumes that the 1857 draft closely followed Wolfram. He does not present any
arguments to support this assumption. He implicitly assumes that no other source
material (whether of recent acquaintance or, like Wolfram, remembered from his
Dresden years) was influencing Wagner on that spring morning in
1857.
Parzival Book 9, verse 491, 6-9:
Brumbâne ist genant
ein sê:
dâ treit mann ûf durch süezen luft,
durch sîner sûren wunden
gruft.
Brumbane the lake is called:
where he finds fragrant
breezes,
to dispel the stench of his wound.
Parzival
Book 6, verse 318, 16-24:
ich weiz vier küneginne
unt vier hundert
juncfrouwen,
die man gerne möhte schouwen.
ze Schastel marveil die
sint:
al âventiure ist ein wint,
wan die man dâ bezalen mac,
hôher
minne wert bejac.
al hab ich der reise pîn,
ich wil doch hînte drûffe
sîn.
I know of four queens
and four hundred maidens,
who are a
delight to see.
They dwell in Castle Marvel:
all adventures are in
vain,
compared to what one might win there,
a noble prize of highest
love.
Although it will be a hard journey,
I intend to be there
tonight.
Parzival Book 6, verse 334, 16-22:
doch sagter
mir vier vrouwen namn,
die dâ krônebære sint.
zwuo sint alt, zwuo sint
noch kint.
der heizet einiu Itonjê,
diu ander heizet Cundrîê,
diu
dritte heizt Arnîve,
diu vierde Sangîve.
So he named me four
ladies,
who are entitled to wear crowns.
Two of them old, two still
children.
Of these, one is called Itonje,
the second is named
Cundrie,
the third is called Arnive,
the fourth Sangive.
The
Cundrie mentioned here is "sweet Cundrie", sister of Gawain, and Itonje is their
younger sister. Queen Sangive is their mother. Queen Arnive is the mother of
King Arthur (the equivalent of Malory's Igraine).
Parzival Book
3, verse 140, 15-20:
ir rôter munt sprach sunder twâl
«deiswâr du heizest
Parzivâl.
der nam ist rehte enmitten durch.
grôz liebe ier solch herzen
furch
mit dîner muoter triuwe:
dîn vater liez ir riuwe».
She of the
red lips spoke thus:
"You are indeed Parzival.
Your name means
pierced-through-middle.
Such great love broke the heart
of your faithful
mother:
your father left her sorrow."
Parzival Book 6,
verse 315, 20-23:
gunêrt sî iwer liehter schîn
und iwer manlîchen
lide.
het ich suone oder vride,
diu wærn iu beidiu tiure.
A curse
on your fair looks
and on your manly limbs.
Had I peace and joy to
give,
you would go begging for them!
An alternative
reading is that Kundry has been excluded from the temple as a woman. The temple
of the Grail is a male preserve, in which a community of men guard the feminine
symbol of the Grail, and where masculine values prevail. Parsifal as the
Victoriously Perfect admits the woman and by doing so restores balance to the
community
Saturday, February 23, 2013
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